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Chileans pick up pieces after quake

Fear and uncertainty grip survivors struggling to reclaim the routines of their everyday lives.

Earthquake survivors in Lota, Chile, scavenge for food inside a warehouse Thursday. Chile will need international loans and three or four years to rebuild after Saturday’s earthquake, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said. (March 4, 2010) (JOSE LUIS SAAVEDRA / REUTERS)

CHILLAN, Chile–It was nearly closing time at the vast Jumbo supermarket on the outskirts of this temblor-tested town, and you could almost have been forgiven for thinking it was just another day.

Of course, you would have had to ignore the large, ugly gashes in one of the store's interior walls – damage suffered early Saturday when central Chile was hit by the severest earthquake it has suffered in half a century.

You would also have had to overlook the two Chilean soldiers, clad in camouflage fatigues and armed with automatic rifles, who were posted at the store's main entrance – no longer a common image here.

True, Chile was ruled by a military dictatorship for nearly 20 years, beginning in 1973, but those days are over. The soldiers on guard at Chillan's Jumbo store were meant to protect it against looters.

Not that there were any.

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Instead, hundreds of ordinary-looking people swarmed through the huge emporium Thursday, shopping for everything from electronic goods to sliced cheese, all paying dutifully for every item they purchased.

"Here, we are like a paradise," said store clerk Hugo Palma, 60. "Things fell down. There was some trauma. But we are better now."

It just goes to show that even huge earthquakes that register a back-breaking 8.8 on the Richter scale can be mighty choosy about what they deign to leave standing and what they decide to destroy.

One of the Chilean cities hardest hit by the earthquake, Chillan certainly took its blows, but it seemed to be working its way back to something like normality Thursday, just five days after the walls began to shake.

The same cannot be said for Chile's second city, Concepcion, located on the Pacific coast about 100 km. away, or for many other smaller communities scattered along the seafront near the epicentre of Saturday's earthquake.

"In Concepcion, the story is different," said Palma.

"There, not a single supermarket is open. All the people from Concepcion are coming here."

In Concepcion, there was physical damage on a daunting scale, scores of people were killed, and thousands have been left homeless.

Meanwhile, Chillan suffered through something of a rush-hour traffic jam Thursday, as workers, shoppers, and other travellers went about their business almost as if the earthquake had never happened.

Almost.

As recently as Wednesday, aftershocks from the initial quake continued to rattle central Chile, and their effects were felt in Chillan, both physically and psychologically.

"I fear everything," said Viviana Toledo who was stocking up on provisions at the Jumbo store along with her mother, Mila.

"I fear the aftershocks. I fear the criminals. In the night, the criminals are my greatest fear."

She was referring to more than 200 prison inmates who escaped Chillan's main detention centre following damage caused by the quake.

Now this agricultural city, located near Chile's geographical centre, is abuzz with dark rumours about criminal activity and deadly gang fights between rival groups of liberated prisoners. Following the quake, Chillan was clamped under an 8 p.m. curfew.

It was pushed back Wednesday to 9 p.m., so that this country's olive-clad national police – known as the Carabineros – can deal more effectively with wrong-doers.

It's an eerie reminder of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship throughout the 1970s and '80s, when similar measures were used against political dissidents.

But it is the poor who suffer most. Many buildings in Chillan were destroyed or seriously damaged. These were mainly either older structures or the flimsy adobe or wooden dwellings that serve as homes for the poor.

"Unfortunately, the population of few resources were the most affected," said Palma.

For others here, the worst impact of the earthquake was its devastating effect on the city's communications system, which collapsed almost completely – no lights, no TV, no Internet, no cellphones.

"The communications part was very bad," said Palma.

"The technology failed us. Only (Wednesday) did service come back. We knew nothing even of our closest neighbours. We couldn't communicate with Concepcion."

Despite the destruction, the Jumbo store opened its doors sharp at 8 a.m. on Saturday, just four-and-a- half hours after the temblor, and spent the rest of the day serving the public on a restricted basis – selling only essential goods.

The lineup reached 30 metres out into the parking lot.

By Wednesday, some goods were in short supply, especially flour, yeast, candles and matches.

But then on Thursday the transport trucks began arriving again, the power is back on, and people here say things are almost back to normal.

"Last night," said Mila Toledo, a wife and the mother of two grown daughters, "was the first night I slept well."

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